Sam Puredes says that it’s time to stand up to forces that for too long has dominated California politics.

The executive director for the Folsom-based Gun Owners of California used the example of a bully that just keeps pushing and pushing and then pulls back to give the false sense that any ground gained would be a victory when describing lawmaking in Sacramento.

He connected it to the Leninist interpretation of dialectic materialism – where “pulling back the hammer is as essential and important as slamming it down.”

But, he said to the more than two dozen people that packed into The Godfather Room at Chez Shari Thursday night for the twice-monthly meeting of the Manteca Tea Party Patriots, it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.

The constant barrage on the rights of gun owners and residents at large – the UN Small Arms Treaty, Operation Fast and Furious – show that the federal government doesn’t mind, Puredes said, to periodically infringe on an essential right that was guaranteed more than 200 years ago.

It’ll be up to the individual citizens to determine whether that stands.

“The UN treaty is invasive and unconstitutional to an independent sovereignty, and we fly a flag here that is red, white and blue – not powder blue,” Puredes said. “We’re living the greatest experiment on the face of God’s green earth in terms of freedom. We can say that if you’re jealous of us and America, copy our Constitution.”

His group is currently keeping their eye on a multitude of gun-related bills working their way through the California legislature – including one that, if passed, would make California a “shall carry” state and take the power of who gets issued concealed carry permits out of the hands of local sheriffs.

Those rights, Puredes said, have over time been stripped away very slyly by members of what has historically been California’s ruling political party – the Democrats – and very few avenues have existed where they can be restored.

Until now.

The power of the Tea Party movement, in his eyes, can help transform the political landscape across California and shift the focus from simply a red and blue equation into a question about the individual issues. It is the same tactic that the Tea Party has used in Congressional races to shake-up what were considered slam-dunk reelections for the incumbents.

“We had our arms around all of the freedom and liberty on God’s earth, and the left has since been plucking those away one by one and they’ve been very good at it,” Puredes said. “We are only as strong as our weakest link and we need to make our weak links stronger – replace them if need be.”